Moat Mountain Bone Shaker

Posted by sunbeer on November 22nd, 2012

Moat Mountain is a fairly new yet well-respected can-only brewing outfit located in North Conway, NH. Though their brews are presented in a somewhat bizarre format (huge cans!), I recently tried their pale ale with friends and was surprised by how fresh and hoppy it was, so when I saw this, their brown ale, at Trader Joe’s in Nashua, I was keen to grab it and give it a shot. I gave it a fairly aggressive pour, mainly because I haven’t given too much thought to brown ales in the past, which lead to a very powerful head that became static after a few minutes. Sinking down to a two-finger ring of foam with fair lacing and low clarity, I knew this beer was going somewhere!

The scent up front seems fruity, estery and sweet with deeply-roasted malt taking a good bit of the forefront before floral, hoppy aspects tame that evenly. This is surprisingly floral and aromatic given my expectation of a deep, dark, sweet kind of beer… sort of awesome, actually! My first sip definitely allays my fears of this being a less-malty beer, however; extremely granular malts pass by every section of the palate before a dry and somehow-quenching finish wraps it all up. As I drink, lacing seems fantastic for the style… soapy, thick and consistent; awesome! Simple yet satisfying roasted malt is the main attraction for this beer, though the pine-y and citric hop aspect is understated and balances the body well. There’s a bit of spiciness which seems a bit rye-like though it is mainly in the middle of the palate which makes me think black pepper or something similar rather than the drying, weird character of rye. There’s a slight spice to the hops here that makes this pretty interesting, though the thickness of the malt is definitely the centerpiece. The body on this is on the thick side of “medium” with a nicely coating mouthfeel that makes up for in brown-bread-like flavors what it lacks in complexity and interest. There doesn’t seem to be much to this other than brown sugar, roasted and somewhat sweet barley malt and light hoppiness but it’s satisfying and successful despite the simplicity of the ingredients. Carbonation seems nice and carries flavors of the aforementioned brown sugar along with toasted bread, chocolate chip cookie and caramel, while the hoppy and balanced finish really makes this solid. When I think of North Conway, I think of this kind of thing; down-to-earth and completely rock-solid, having been on vacation there multiple times throughout my life. This is such a good, easy beer; it’s tough to find any real issues with a great recipe as Moat so obviously has here… I can’t fault them for doing an under-represented style (English brown) so well.

This is definitely a beer made for sharing at 26 ounces per can; I can definitely recommend it as part of a regimen for lovers of American brown ales, especially those dabbling in English-style browns, as that’s what this most reminds me of… however, it seems by no means necessary. If anything, it’s a fairly-large step up from Newcastle and a good way to get people from New England into craft beer if they really dig malty, darker beers. I feel like this was well-priced at $6 for such a huge can, but others might disagree given how non-portable this large hunk of aluminum is. I guess it depends entirely on the audience, but I applaud Moat for releasing beer in such a weird medium. If you can get this, you probably know what you’re going for in beer and thus got this for some particular reason… but if you are out checking beer in New England and you see stuff from Moat you should probably just get it, especially if you have a buddy to split it with; as the can itself states… Big Enough to Share!

THE OFFICIAL BREAKDOWN:

Style: English/American Brown AleABV: 5.4%

Appearance: Nice opaque brown body with one-finger head even after 15 minutes, Solid lacing that washes off quickly but seems consistentScent: Burnt sugar, toasted bread, molasses, floral and pine-y/spicy hop notes, cookies and light cream are all apparent. Better/more complex as it warmsTaste: Toasted malts and deep caramel melded with some hops that balance out a fairly sweet-leaning palateMouthfeel: Smooth with on-style carbonation leaning towards a heavy body. The spicy, pine-y hops even this out, howeverDrinkability: This would be a great brown ale to share with someone who is into the style but hasn’t had this particular one yet. Pretty great!